A point I forgot about Lafite is the litany of other things they make.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen a DRC or Screaming Eagle ad. Any one? (Harlan, Colgin, Araujo, Bryant, etc…)
Yes.
One of the most astute pieces I have ever read on the subject of wine! Bravo.
I don’t think those wineries have any choice of “allowing” or “not allowing” WS to taste and review their wines, any more than Sony Pictures gets to choose which movie critics review their new movie. I believe WS sources wines on its own at its own cost to review, to avoid being beholden to producers and any risk of being sent a “supersample” for review.
Transparency!
Greg - I think you need to reread Kramer’s article.
When he talks about “our palates,” he’s clearly talking about people generally who drink expensive wines. Once upon a time, that was a crowd who were more inclined to wait on their wines. The market has grown enormously and a smaller proportion of people are prepared to age wines. Winemakers have responded. Can you really quarrel with that? Of course there are geeks like you and me (and I would be pretty sure Kramer) who do age wine; but fewer and fewer winemakers no longer cater to people with the ability to age wines for decades.
I don’t read him as saying he has given up on wines that really do improve over decades. I think he’s just saying that he’s come to accept that he ought to enjoy the new style of wines for what they are young and not waste cellar space, capital and patience aging them beyond the point that they will actually improve.
He acknowledges several times that there are some wines that will gain complexity with decades of aging, so I don’t think you have a quarrel with him there.
You say: “Are some wines that were once rough and tough while young now drinkable at a younger age? Sure. But even then it is not a logical step to conclude that they are not worth aging or won’t be far better with age.”
Here you may actually disagree with, and me. I think there is lots of evidence to suggest that the new accessibility young had a big impact on aging patterns.
I find a high proportion of Bordeaux is becoming like California cab – a wine that can be drunk pleasurably in its early years and will plateau, with little further evolution. Having tasted Bordeaux vintages like 82, 89 and 90 on release and now, I don’t see the evolution that you experienced with earlier vintages. I think that happened in the Northern Rhone in the 90s, too. Many of those wines evolve more quickly now but not to the heights they reached in the past, when the wines were tough slogging young.
I don’t have the same history with Spanish wines or Barolo/Barbaresco (having come to them in the 90s), but I wonder about a lot of Ribera del Duero and modern-leaning Barolo/Barbaresco from the mid-90s on.
The problem with the article is that Kramer floats back and forth between two different points regarding the aging of fine wine…1) that the majority of today’s fine wines do not REQUIRE extended aging (beyond 5 to 10 years)…and 2) that these wines do not IMPROVE beyond 5 or 10 years. It’s therefore hard to agree or disagree with Kramer or the article as a whole. I agree with the first point. One can look to changes in farming and winemaking over the decades to see how this came to be. The second point; however, involves so many variables and is so personally subjective that any blanket statements will be false. Regarding his comments about diminishing returns, I could easily argue that MORE of today’s wines will reward extended aging than in decades past simply due to the significant reduction in flawed wines/bottles and the proportionately larger amount of great wines being produced these days.
Greg T, you were there, no?
Si Señor! At the now defunct Zoe’s, as I recall? A nice event all in all.
John - my problem with him is that he dumbs down his argument and then leaves his argument half argued.
His underlying argument seems to be that wine, or “fine wine” has changed. That may or may not be true. Maybe it’s just a matter of having a lot more choices today and if you want to argue that an increase in choice is in itself a change, I’ll concede that point.
But he attributes the change to green harvesting. “Today, we’re consistently presented with red wines—especially the greatest, most exalted and expensive examples—that are annually crafted from uniformly ripe grapes, thanks to “green harvests.”. . .
The modern rigor of “green harvesting” should not be underestimated in its effect. It has transformed the quality of fine red wines nearly everywhere, ensuring more uniformly ripe grapes with rounder, softer, finer tannins.”
Way too simplistic. And BTW, green harvesting is not practiced everywhere. It’s simply one more tool in vineyard management and it’s the options in vineyard management that have made a big difference - everything from selecting rootstock, orientation of rows, vine spacing, pruning and trellising system, canopy type, etc.
What about this famous red Bordeaux? Or that fabled red Burgundy? What about grand cru Chablis? Or a great Brunello di Montalcino? Or Barolo?
. . . Yes, all of those wines and still others, such as German and Alsatian Rieslings, Napa Valley Cabernets and Hungarian Tokajis, reward aging.
But let me tell you something: With only a handful of ultratraditionalist exceptions, the modern versions of even these wines don’t require anywhere near as much aging as their forebears.
It doesn’t mean that they won’t be better with the aging. It only means that they can sometimes be more accessible younger.
I once talked to Isaac Muga about that. Muga wanted to make a “modern” wine to address the market segment that likes such wines, so they came up with Torre Muga and Aro. I told him that I’d had a bottle of the Torre Muga a few days earlier and it was tasting mighty fine after 10 years. “Oh no,” he said. “You must drink it earlier. Otherwise it will just be like a Gran Reserva.”
Well, I’m happy to have a Gran Reserva!
Remember, a $100 wine that takes 10 years to be approachable is roughly twice as expensive as a $100 wine that can be enjoyed on release.
I pay less than a dollar per bottle to store my wines; therefore, that $100 ten year bottle costs about $110, in my eyes.
It’s also important to remember that a wine that is “enjoyable on release” still isn’t going to have that wonderful tertiary development that can be achieved only by aging. This is a point that Kramer seems to largely ignore and/or dismiss.
Besides failing to compound the annual cost of storage, you are completely disregarding the time value of money. $100 today is certainly not worth $100 in 10 years.
So how does $100 turn into $200 over ten years?
I think Faryan is referring to the cost of capital.
On that note, I think that it’s interesting to note that a proportion (some, most, whatever) of wine requires less aging than it used to. From a financial perspective, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Unless we are saying they are now making worse wine, because it is accessible earlier? Who’s arguing that they big boys are making bad wine these days? If the wine is less ageworthy, why not drink it earlier? Does ageing have value in and of itself?
The value in ageing wine is achieving those aromas/scents and flavors that can be achieved no other way.
Because the price of those wines aren’ty driven up by wine geeks, but by people with lots of disposable income, who like wine more than the average person (but still won’t spend an afternoon thinking about the must level of German rieslings).
That is true-but is it not more importantly about integration?
6 in one hand, half dozen in the other …
There are lots of wines that smooth out and integrate but don’t develop a lot of secondary flavors and aromas. Smoothing and integration is the easy part. I think that’s what Kramer’s talking about: Most high-end wines are made now to do that pretty quickly.
My understanding and experience is green harvesting is primarily a measure to increase concentration in the remaining grapes. ie. an answer to over-cropping.
Uniformly ripe grapes comes from a training approach that creates a narrow fruit zone. With a wider zone, the higher clusters will ripen sooner and the lower clusters lag behind. Some would say this change was an over-reaction to a real problem and you do get more complexity with a moderate range of ripeness (while avoiding the extremes of green and raisin).
Another way to look at it is in your own personal economic value in the enjoyment of a wine. So, measured in present value, a wine that costs $100 now may only be $40 enjoyable now. With an additional $10 in storage cost, in 10 years it may be $200 enjoyable.